Science Shows Something Surprising About People Who Lift Weights

A new study from Georgia Tech researchers to be published in the November issue of the journal Acta Psychologica has found that, aside from the basic physical benefits of lifting weights, pumping iron for just 20 minutes a day can seriously boost your memory. That’s right: 20 minutes reps of bi and tri curls each day may help you remember everything else going on in your life.

The researchers examined 46 young adults with an average age of 20, 23 “active” ones who exercised regularly and 23 “passive” ones who were relatively lazy. Though the researchers used a particular set of criteria to exclude participants (such as obesity, hearing difficulty and left-handedness), the results still strongly suggested that “a single bout of resistance exercise performed during consolidation can produce episodic memory benefits 48 hours later.”